Bird Flu

The news caught up with me just before lunch yesterday.

Over the last few days, things have become easier down on the farm; the weather has given us a respite from the cold, outside water is now flowing and everything that looked so frozen and sad a week ago, has pulled through. Even the coriander in the polytunnel looks as if it might survive to photosynthesis another day.

So, I was in a good mood as I swung into the kitchen to grab a sandwich. Enter my better half; had I heard about the bird flu threat and the decision by DEFRA to impose an Avian Influenza Prevention Zone across England, Wales, and Scotland? No, I hadn’t but I was about to.

There have been outbreaks of what is classified as a ‘highly pathogenic strain’ of avian influenza (there are two strains and this is the nasty one) in several eastern European countries very recently and now the news was of one in France, just across that tiny stretch of water that separates us from all sorts of harm. The disease is spread by contact, bird to bird and through body fluids and faeces rather than airborne so very early yesterday morning the government decided to enforce an ‘immediate and compulsory housing of domestic chickens, hens, turkeys and ducks or their separation from wild birds’; rough quote from the DEFRA website. This applies to all poultry flocks, big and small, from large producers to people like me with a few birds. The order stands for a month until the 6^th January.

As I walked down to shut up my birds, I was trying to work out what I was going to do. My chickens and ducks are free range. They spend their lives outside. They live in small arks and have large runs surrounded by electric fencing which protects them from foxes but not viruses. How was I going to comply and protect them? The arks are too small to keep the birds in for a month. The runs are too big to cover in any way. By the time I reached the smallholding I had had a couple of flashes of inspiration. The chickens could go into the polytunnel and there was room for the ducks in our bird proof fruit cage where I had pulled up a bed of aging strawberry plants in the Autumn.

A plan. I would need to borrow a crate to put the birds in while we moved house for them, we would still need the electric fencing because I don’t trust our fox population, we would need to dismantle part of the fruit cage to move the duck ark inside it and we would need to construct some sort of roosting area inside the polytunnel where the chickens would feel safe at night and lay their eggs.

Somehow today we did it. I rescued some of the plants that were in pots from the polytunnel, cut parsley and coriander to dry and turned my back on the beds of leaf salad and greens and then we swung into action with a couple of pallets and some ply to create a nesting area for the chickens, caught them and introduced them to their new home. Then came the electric fencing around the outside and much swearing.

Once family one was settled in, we concentrated on the ducks and moved their ark into the safe zone I had chosen for them. More electric fencing and more swearing but we did it. There is no pond but they can move around through the raspberry canes and shovel for worms.

Once everything was done I peeped into the polytunnel to see how the chickens were faring in their new abode. The leaf salad, spinach and lettuce were gone and the greens were stripped and they looked remarkably happy with life.

Tonight, as I shut up the ducks and checked the chickens everything was quiet, all had settled down in their new homes; it was just my world that had turned upside down.

Winter

Who rattled Winter’s cage? Who poked a stick between the bars and woke her from her slumbers? Who whispered in her ear, ‘ok enough of this rain and wind. How about some real winter weather’?

As she awoke and we slept, temperatures plunged. Up early, she tiptoed down the lane and brushed the leaves, which had been scooped by the wind into piles at the edge of the road, with frozen fingers. Her skirts swirled across the fields and left behind a rind of white frost. Water turned grey and frozen. The air stood still, holding its breath in the silence left by the cold. The sun rose above the rim of the hills into a spotless sky. The light fired the bare branches of the silver birch and the world shook itself and woke to a winter’s morning.

-7⁰C. I checked the thermometer on the wall outside the porch as I pulled on my coat and struggled into gloves. This was it. My first real winter as a small holder. The dog and I walked into work. A short walk, with the warmth of the sun as it lifted through the trees, with ears stinging with the cold, breath hanging on the air, fingers throbbing, with contrails in a clear blue sky, hips sparkling with frost, with a sudden loud green woodpecker bobbing across a stubble field, with eyes watering, a robin, and with a good to be alive feeling deep in the warmth inside.

Then we were there, standing outside a glistening polytunnel looking out across the field to the chicken and duck arcs pitched in a field painted white by the frost.

When I opened up, the chickens spilled out across the frozen run, fanning out across the grass as usual. When it became apparent to them that the ground they were pecking at was frozen solid they seemed to accept the situation with a large dollop of stoicism and made a headlong assault on the feeder of mash I carried into their run.

The ducks were confused. Their flurry out of the shed normally ends in the pond, in the water in the pond that is. Today this was not to be. They stood on it, tested it, walked across it and one of them tried to take off from it but nobody got to swim.

Water was the first problem. The weather forecast had warned it would be cold but I hadn’t expected all the outside water to be frozen. The pipes were lagged but there are limits and -7⁰ was obviously it. Even water inside the field shed was frozen and the kettle in the veg shed was solid ice. And it was not about to thaw. I was obviously not well organised. There was no choice but to scourge buckets of water from one of the workshops that lies alongside the small holding so the birds could drink and I could make coffee.

Then it was up to the sheep. The field at the top where they are grazing slopes gently east to west and the sun was warming the air and the ground. I carried apples as a treat and hand fed some of the more trusting sheep, lingering in the warmth of the sun and enjoying the view across the river valley to the hills in the distance. The bottom field, where the birds and the allotment are, was still lying in shadow and still very cold.

Then came the polytunnel and greenhouse. As I lifted the bubble wrap from the plants things did not look good. Even with the extra protection, the leaf salad and lettuce, carrots, parsley, and spring greens lay limp and sad. The coriander was definitely not going to be a survivor. There is nothing I can do except hope some of the plants come round as temperatures rise.

Now was the time to get organised better. More water carrying, ready for late afternoon when the ducks and chickens would be fed again and put safely away for the night. Then there were extra buckets of water for the morning wrapped in old paper sacks inside the field shed. I wasn’t going to get caught out again. Extra straw to keep everyone warm. Everything is a learning curve.

Winter is enjoying herself. With another cold night of -7⁰, it dropped again to -8⁰ last night. But I now have a routine. A different routine. Life has shifted a little, like walking into a tunnel where you know you just have to keep going because you can see light at the end which you will eventually reach.

It IS cold working outside but it is also very alive and quite amazing at times.

As I shut the chickens and ducks up it has grown dark except for a smear of light lying along the ridge of the Downs. The rooks lift from the trees on the side of the hill, their noise fills the air, and then as one they settle back into their night roost. Silence fills the sky. The trees stand dark, limbs outstretched against the fading light. Cold drifts up from the frozen ground. And then from out of the trees the moon rises above the line of the hills. So close you could touch it, against a clear velvet black sky, a perfect crescent hanging in the night sky.

Winter is enjoying herself and so am I.

Cheesy

When the world seems a grim place and there is winter in the wind blowing across the empty stubble fields, the only thing to do is hunker down in the farmhouse kitchen of a friend and learn how to make cheese.

The friend is Sharon and the idea hatched in Cheddar (where else?) on a girls’ weekend break, youth hostelling and walking in Somerset. Having just circumnavigated Cheddar Gorge we were considering a cream tea the way you do, when we spotted the cheese shop at the bottom of the hill that winds up the narrow gorge. The small factory behind the shop is open to visitors and as we walked round and learned how they make their famous cheese it quickly became obvious that this was a small family business, very hands on, using traditional methods with minimal mechanization. The staff were very welcoming and passionate about their product and as we sampled it we could see why. This was not the cheddar you buy in the supermarket; this was something special, something unique, some of it matured, as it has always been, in the caves deep within the amazing geology of this beautiful area.

As we bought a collection of cheese to take home, Sharon invited me over to share in a cheese making session. She has been making her own cheese for a year or so now and is well qualified as a teacher, a very good cook, and the wife of a dairy farmer to run a cheesy day.

So, with Katie (of sheep fame) and Carla her dog, we rolled up at Sharon’s house on a bright clear-blue-sky day with a sharp wind blowing from the north. Collar up against the chill I knocked and opened the outhouse door and found myself eye to eye with a soft black and white bundle of twelve-week-old collie puppy. This was Bess, the newest member of the family, and a complete time waster if ever I saw one. After introductions, I wondered if I could smuggle her out at the end of the day but I suspected she would be missed.

Sharon has a real farmhouse kitchen; large and warm and living, with an ancient stove, an old dinning room table, a battered settee, a piano, a dresser, and shelves crammed with china, books, and photographs. There were a dozen or more flagons of cider popping away contently to themselves in one corner and a stack of jars of crab apple jelly waiting to be labelled and put away.

So, the day began; with a cup of coffee and a quick catch up on local gossip and then it was down to serious work. We started at the beginning with a trip down to the milking parlour to collect the raw milk we needed to produce our cheese.

We had decided to make mozzarella and a soft curd cheese. The process is amazingly simple. We kicked off with the mozzarella. Sharon gave us each a large stock pot and watched carefully as we poured our milk into them and dissolved citric acid and rennet in water ready to add at the appropriate time. As we warmed the milk on the cooker, Sharon lit the old stove, cautiously feeding it as it caught alight and spread heat through the kitchen. Under her watchful eye, we added the citric acid (we could have used lemon juice) and carefully carried the stock pots over to the ancient stove. Stirring gently, thermometer in hand, I leaned into the warmth of the range and through the large window beside me, watched the wind creep across the lawn, its long fingers scattering silent flurries of leaves into the air. How many women I wondered had stood beside this stove and stirred patiently waiting for milk to warm. I checked the thermometer, 90 ⁰; time to add the rennet which sets the proteins in the milk to form the solid curds.

Then we set it to one side and had another cup of coffee. There was a pattern developing here. Whilst we chatted and ate cake, a quiet miracle took place and when we lifted the lids of the pots there were the curds we had been hoping for. Then it got exciting as the curds were cut, reheated, and separated from the whey. Modern technology muscled in as the curds were placed in the microwave. Sharon brandished rubber gloves which we slipped on as the curds were removed, ready to squeeze the whey out of the hot, elastic cheese by carefully kneading it like bread. Then it was back into the microwave for thirty seconds, out again and the curds were folded, kneaded again and then stretched. We repeated this until the cheese was firm and glossy and ready to be shaped into that familiar ball of mozzarella.

Whilst the drama of the mozzarella was unfolding we had a go at making cream cheese. Similar process but a mesophilic starter rather than citric acid and it needed time to set. Which was fine because there was lunch; homemade soup and freshly baked bread, the dogs needed a walk and there was an old spinning wheel begging to be played with using some of the wool from our sheep.

We drove away (no chance to smuggle out the puppy) with tubs of soft, white, creamy cheese that we had made ourselves, and a warm glowing sense inside that we had shared in something that was very old. We had stepped into a tradition that stretches back centuries, dipped into a well of knowledge that goes deep down into our pasts. Like the cheese makers in Cheddar we had become a tiny cog in the wheel that keeps old country crafts alive to be passed down to new generations.

Will I make some more cheese? Oh yes, definitely! I might even invite my daughter round to help.

                                          

Endings and Beginnings

It is no use pretending any longer; summer has stolen away; autumn has sidled in and winter is waiting in the wings to steal the show.

The mornings are dark when I awake and yesterday as I stripped the old runner beans from their poles, there was a sharp wind with a cold edge blowing from the east; the same wind that is following me across the field to shut up the ducks and the chickens for the night. It is only quarter past six but heavy, grey night clouds have darkened the east, and are gathering their forces against the clear band of silver light still lying along the top of the hill to the west. The air is full of raucous cries as the rooks lift into the sky, turn against the gathering darkness and sweep towards their night roost in the woodland at the top of the hill. Then all is silent save for the plaintive quack of one of my ducks waiting for its supper. My waddling friends don’t argue. Once I place the feed hopper inside they dutifully follow each other into their shed. By the time I secure the electric fence around the chicken run it is dark. I call my dog and head down, collar up, I am glad to be heading home where a warm, bright kitchen and the smell of supper awaits me. Gone are the warm evenings when I lingered to watch the swallows fill the evening sky, and waited for the first glimpse of a bat through the trees as dusk fell. 

The allotment looks forlorn. The apple trees are bare; their fruit is carefully packed into boxes in the store shed and only a few windfalls are left for the squirrels. The squashes have been lifted, hardened and are also in store and all that is left is a bare patch of grey earth and a rash of new young stinging nettles in one corner. The large, green umbrella leaves of the rhubarb have collapsed and their rotting remains lay spread eagled across the flinty soil. In the greenhouse, the last tomatoes hang on shrivelled stems to ripen slowly until the first frost.

The end of the season. Time to hang up the fork and the hoe and burrow down indoors in the warm.

But that is not the way things work. Because this is where next year starts. It is a time for new plans, new ideas, and lots of hard work preparing the ground (literally) for new beginnings. It is wellies on, gloves at the ready, scarf tucked in, a jar of hot chocolate on the shelf in the veg shed, and down to work while the weather holds.

I have already sown broad beans, and onion sets outside and in the polytunnel late salad leaves, winter lettuce, coriander, parsley and rocket are showing their heads. There are carrots in tubs which will hopefully survive the winter and this week I split open a packet of winter peas, soaked them in paraffin to deter the mice and carefully dropped the small wrinkled seeds into shallow drills in the dark, still warm earth in the hope of an early crop next year. Hidden at the back of the potting cupboard is a roll of horticultural bubble wrap waiting to be used if it turns cold. 

And now it’s into the manure heap with the wheel barrow. Steam gently rises in the cool air as I shovel in the dung and trundle it along to the beds I have cleared ready for digging. There is something special about the smell of damp earth as it is turned with the spade; freshness and decay rolled into one. Equally, there is something seriously satisfying about digging; a sense of achievement as a messy patch of weeds morphs into crumbly carefully tilled soil. Or is it a masochistic streak buried deep that just enjoys the exercise? I try to do less each year to protect the soil structure and I have come around to the idea of permaculture and green manure but tucked inside I am my father’s daughter and he believed in digging.

And the digging gives me time to plan and to dream of all the things that I am going to do next spring. The vegetables I am going to squeeze into this plot, the drip feed, self-watering system I am going to work out how to use next year, the sacrificial flowers I am going to plant between the vegetables to deter ravenous insects from eating my crops, the beautiful scarecrow I am going to make, the ornamental bed of cut flowers I am going to grow, and so it goes on.

Just a few more weeks of hard work if the weather is kind and the allotment should be put to bed, clean and tidy, ready and waiting to begin again. Then I can retreat indoors.

Roll on the spring!

Payback Time

It is eleven o’clock, very hot and I have been working hard all morning cleaning out ducks and chickens, so I reckon it is time to put the kettle on, indulge in a slice of cake, drag the chair out of the ‘veg’ shed into the orchard, chose a shady spot and collapse before I get the mower out and cut the grass around the allotment. 

The apple tree stands in its own pool of shade, low slung branches hung with golden brown Russets ripening in the sun. This tiny orchard was planted with eating apples; bright crimson Discovery which are ready to eat, crisp, green, Greensleeves which will be ready to pick at the end of the month and then my favourite; an apple called Elstar which is green and yellow with a red blush when it is ripe at the end of October. Plum and gangly greengages rub branches gently in the breeze. The gages and the Czar plums are a mouth watering memory but the best is yet to come as the Victoria plums soften in the sun.

Through a gap in the trees, I can see onions ready for lifting and in the greenhouse lurk red tomatoes, dark green cucumbers and bell shaped peppers; because this is payback time. Payback; for all the hard work that has gone into the garden this year. At last, the bad guys have stopped growing faster then the good guys and it is time to start harvesting. There are beans, long dark runner beans, short round French beans dripping from their poles, their red and white flowers dancing in the warm air. The courgettes are making a bid to take over the garden and amongst the tangle of umbrella leaves and splashes of yellow flowers lurk full grown marrows. Their cousins, the squashes, are ripening fast; turning orange and red and the colour of butter. Crimson beetroot rubs shoulders with beautiful deep green and red veined Swiss chard. Tall, straight, pale green leafy celery is ready for cutting and then there are the specials; the feathery fronds of Florence Fennel drifting in the wind, Globe Artichokes with splayed, grey toothed leaves and edible flower buds and above all rises the sweet corn, yellow and straight, standing sentinel, cradling tightly closed green cobs with brown dangling tassels.

Winter crops are waiting in the aisles; the cabbages, sprouts, kale, leeks, parsnips, and celeriac, preparing for their grand entrance into the spotlight as the first frost takes out the soft summer plants.

There is something special about sitting down to a meal; looking at the plate in front of you and knowing that everything you are eating you have produced yourself. Not an air mile in sight. The family smile indulgently when I point out that this food is our food; home grown to the last nibbled leaf. I bang on about it to them in the hope, I suppose, that one day they might realise how good it is to eat fresh, seasonal, misshapen carrots and holey greens and want to follow in their slightly (?) weird mother’s footsteps and grow some of their own food.

What I don’t tell them is that it’s not always easy and life on the allotment is a battlefield, requiring hard work, diligence, constant vigilance and a large dollop of optimism. Anything that can fly, flutter, crawl, hop or run sees your allotment as an open invitation to dine. From the first rustle of the seed packet to the last cabbage cut, you are sharing what you grow with the wildlife around you. It is like living in a commune; you share. You share your pea, bean and sweet corn seed with the resident mice, anything that dares to raise its head above soil level with the slugs and snails of this world, your brassicas with those intricately striped cabbage white caterpillars, your fruit with the birds and lots of maggoty things, your unprotected sprouts with the pigeons, your proud standing sweet corn with rampaging badgers and your runner beans with long necked deer. Everyone shares; it is just that you do all the work.    

However good your defences something will get through; how do those cabbage white butterflies get inside the nets? Where is the hole in the fruit cage that let the blackbird in? Who tunnels into the potatoes and turns the tubers brown. There are more questions than answers but of course, there are more of them than us.

Then there are the disappointments. I have not been able to germinate a single carrot this year. What am I doing wrong? The beetroot looks lovely but it took two sowings to get it to this stage. Where are the swedes I sowed? Why did my row of lettuce only produce two plants that I could cut and chop into a salad? Did I blink and miss the strawberry crop?

What about the heart breaking moments? Shutting up one evening in June I noticed a black blotchy leaf on one of the main crop potato plants. Despite the fact that I held my breath, two days later, they all had blight and I was scurrying around cutting off all the leaf in the hope it would not reach the tubers. A week later, I dug all the potatoes and although I rescued what was there the crop was light and there is a gap in the storeroom. The weather had been warm and humid; perfect for the spread of blight and it found its way into the polytunnel and the green houses. I dared to go on holiday and returned to a scene of devastation amongst the tomatoes. The same day I discovered brown rot amongst some of the apples. As I trimmed blackened leaves and threw diseased apples on the fire heap, I seriously wondered why I was doing what I was doing. What was wrong with the supermarket and a deck chair in the summer? But with a change in the weather, severe pruning back of the tomatoes and a careful eye on the apples, the tomato plants have given a good crop for the summer even if there will not be any for chutney or freezing and the apples seem to have survived the hiccup.

Everything else has grown so maybe gardening is about letting go when things go wrong while hanging on to the things that have gone right.

But why do it? Maybe it is for that first bite into pale yellow sweet corn dripping with butter, or the bowl of raspberries sitting in the fridge, or the earthy smell of beetroot gently boiling on the hob. Or is it being able to look out across the allotment at the rows of vegetables and fruit and flowers just knowing that all this is the result of your hard work and labours.

Orkney

There is an old adage that an allotment holder ‘shan’t go on holiday in summer’ but I broke the rule, slipped the chain and stole away for a week on Orkney, leaving the weeds to grow and my son in charge with the warning that if he over-watered or under-watered anything in the greenhouses or forgot to clean out the ducks and chickens there would be hell to pay when I returned.

And what happened? I fell in love; totally beguiled by a group of tiny islands sprinkled off the coast of Scotland like a fist full of stones dropped into the sea by a bored giant. They lie where the Atlantic meets the North Sea and they are steeped in mist and rain and legends and of course magic, like any island.

The love affair began very early on the first morning as the sky lightened and day broke across the fields. I awoke to silence; no Gatwick flight path, no distant hum of traffic, just a huge deep silence, the sort that makes you catch your breath and listen, the silence of curlews calling to each other across the field behind the house.

I padded outside, wrapped my fleece around myself and looked out across Scapa Flow, the light shinning on the water, the island of Flotta, the flare from the oil terminal just visible, the horizon and this huge sky; a glass-sharp pale blue blurred at the edges with gathering cloud and I knew I had fallen hook, line and sinker for this place.

So it went on. We got to know each other better, Orkney and I, as I explored the mainland, visited Kirkwall and its Viking Cathedral, stood solemnly inside the beautiful tiny chapel created by Italian prisoners of war, strolled along the fishing harbour at Stromness in the quietness of a Sunday morning, took the ferry to Hoy, visited the obligatory distillery and strode across craggy cliffs that fell into clear green water. There were empty straight roads through gentle green farmland, rain soaked moorland, sea lochs and stretches of pale yellow sand dunes.

Like the silence, a deep sense of the past runs through everything on Orkney and it hooks you like a drug. The history of these islands is woven into the landscape. You can touch it. The men, women and children who lived here have left a footprint behind, which irresistibly you have to follow.

The Mesolithic hunters and gatherers who settled the island cleared all the trees and they have not been replaced. What little remains of these wanderers who lived close to the sea has disappeared as sea levels have risen.

Their Neolithic successors, however, were farmers and before Stonehenge was built, before the Pyramids were raised they settled here and have left behind a treasure box for archaeologists and people like me who are fascinated by our very early ancestors.

The names of the Neolithic sites on Orkney carry a magic of their own that made the hair on the back of my neck stand up as I read about them before we came. There are the standing stones at Stenness (possibly the oldest henge site in Britain), the Ring of Brodgar with its impressive circle of stones, Skara Brae, a settlement that dates back to 3200BC which was lost until a storm in 1850 washed away the sand dunes covering it. Eight dwellings survive, linked by a maze of low covered passages. Each dwelling has a heath, stone bed, and a stone storage area. The people who lived here, lived well with a healthy diet of meat, seafood, cereals and vegetables and died (albeit younger) with good teeth! Food for thought for us.

Then there is Maeshowe, a chambered cairn set on a windswept hill, with a narrow entrance that was carefully positioned so that the sun’s rays at the winter solstice shone down the passageway to fall on those waiting inside to celebrate the turning of the year.

There are other cairns, like the Tomb of Eagles, where eagle’s claws were discovered alongside human remains, and then there are burnt mounds which appear to be ritual communal cooking sites.

And we walked like pilgrims amongst all this. I stood in the lee of one of the stones in the Brodgar circle, sheltering from the wind looking out across a sea loch, closed my eyes, felt time shift and imagined I stood amongst those who dragged these amazing stones into place.

We dropped in and walked around the ongoing excavations at the Ness of Brodgor where archaeologists believe they are uncovering an area that was used as a religious meeting place some 3,000 years BC.  The work is painstaking and the discoveries that are being made are rewriting what we know about early man. I parted with a donation for the opportunity to put a pin in the map of the dig in the hope that something will be found there as the work continues and they will email me with any information. From stone age to computer age.

We didn't even touch the Pict and Viking remains or anything that has come after. A reason to return.

 

I fell in love with the wild side as well. We took a walk on the third day along sandstone cliffs and stumbled into birdwatcher’s heaven. There was the shriek of sleek Arctic Terns as they dive bombed us as we set off along their cliff top. There were Fulmars nesting on the crags, their fluffy grey chicks tucked on precarious ledges above the pounding sea below. Black and white Arctic Skuas wheeled around between rock and sea. A family of Cormorants rounded a headland making for safe waters. Then, just as we were about to turn back we spotted a group of grey seals, lounging on an outcrop of rocks, flopping into the water, heads bobbing just above the waves.

When I thought things couldn’t get any better, driving back I spotted a short eared owl perched on a fence beside the road.

Our walks took us through wild flower meadows alive with insects. I discovered a tiny white flower called Grass-of-Parnassus, growing alongside Birds Foot Trefoil, Lady’s Bedstraw and Ragged Robin, which I have never seen anywhere else. The moors were covered with Bilberry, fluffy tuffs of Cotton Grass and Meadowsweet. Everywhere there was colour.

The best bits?  The purple jellyfish that floated in on the tide around our feet, and the hare bounding along in front of the car on the track leading down to our cottage. It must be thirty years since I have seen a hare and the sight made the holiday for me.

Last Sunday I took a familiar walk along the South Downs Way up to Truleigh Hill close to where I live. To get to the footpath we cross the River Adur and then cross a main road before we can follow the track up. The sky was clear and blue, a combine, dust rising from its tracks, was at work, there was a buzzard circling above, perfect, but as we stood waiting to cross the road watching the stream of traffic go past, trapped in its noise, I realised I had left a little piece of my soul on Orkney.  

Sheep in Clover

Sheep in Clover

I am standing on the top of my world; ankle deep in clover shimmering with early morning dew, in the middle of the sheep field that runs along the ridge of my land, watching a buzzard spiralling up and up and up into a pale blue sky. He is rising on a thermal, his wings outstretched, tips turned up to the sky, pale markings beneath. Above him are threads of white cloud, below the soft roll of the Downs. He is king of all that sky and I can only watch and wish I could follow him.

The grass is alive with insects; the first bees of the day, a Speckled White butterfly flirting with the clover, ants threading through the grass, and a Cabbage White on its way to my brassicas and at the top of the boundary fence are our sheep; white and black and grey, heads down grazing. This is chalk Downland, At my feet are spikes of deep violet Self Heal, tiny pin-cushioned yellow heads of Black Medick, clumps of yellow and white Mayweed and hidden amongst the grass are the tiny toothed leaves of Salad Burnet. Two clusters of Common Centaury stand out against the white flowers of the clover that sweeps down this hillside, their delicate tiny pink flowers lifting above the grass. It is hard to believe that, with the late cold spring this year, this lush sward never looked as if it would grow. Now spread out below me is a buffet feast for insects and grazing woollies alike.

The sheep were sheared a month ago and already their tight tuffs of wool are growing back and they all look incredibly smart and clean. That had been my first shearing, (like my first lambing a big event; sad really) and we had decided to get an expert in to do the deed; a local farmer who was ready with help and advice for the amateurs down the road. I had watched from the corner of the field shed, where we had penned them up, as he carefully selected each sheep, turned it onto its back and expertly ran the electric clippers over it. The wool slid to the floor where we retrieved it and rolled it into black and grey and dun coloured bundles that were soft and oily to the touch. We sprayed the animals against fly strike and then released them into this new field where they will graze throughout the summer allowing the upper field to recover from its winter grazing ready for use again as the weather turns wetter and colder at the end of this year. We had watched as the lambs bleated for their mothers confused by the transformation that had taken place. No wool, no smell.

Now as I stand checking them I cannot believe how much the lambs have grown. Their coats are longer and they stand shoulder high to their long suffering parents. From a distance, I cannot tell them apart. They are grazing independently now but always hopeful for a feed at the milk bar.

Although we have stopped bucket feeding them, they still wander lazily over in the hope that I bring food which gives me the opportunity to really check them closely. My big worry at this time of year as it gets warmer is fly strike. This is the stuff of nightmares. Flies attracted by dirty fleeces or any sign of blood lay their eggs on the sheep. They hatch and the maggots feed off the flesh of the animals. Big shudder. We spray against it and the sheep are clean but a large part of my visit to the field each morning is spent examining the rear end of each sheep to ensue there is nothing lurking amongst the wool that I will have to deal with.

With the job done I am walking slowly back down the hill listening to the raucous rooks that have moved out of the parental home in the copse that stands on the ridge of the hill next door and are roosting in the bank of sycamore and ash that separates my top and bottom fields. Like all teenagers they are noisy and driving us slightly insane as we wait for them to move out. The air is full of house martins skimming flies across the field. This morning early as I walked in I noticed their fledglings lined up on the telegraph lines above the neighbouring disused buildings that they have always used for nesting.

The year is moving on. Lambs are growing, the bees are busy making honey, birds are fledging and as I close the gate behind me, I am already planning the day ahead.

But up above that buzzard is still playing on the thermals, lifting up into the blue and disappearing into space.

Time Warp

The longest day of the year. The rain is sweeping in from the west across the bottom field and the downs are lost in heavy, grey cloud as I walked towards the duck shed to open up for the day. As I pass the row of bean poles where the first young tender plants are struggling upwards towards the sky, I fancy I can hear the slugs and the snails gathering together in the damp undergrowth to plan and launch an attack on my poor defenceless beans.

Ducks out, fed and watered, chickens out, fed and watered, sheep checked, I stand sheltering under the veranda of the garden shed watching the rain playing rivulets down the folds of the polytunnel and make the decision to go home. Thinking back over the last two months, I realise that this is the first time I have abandoned the allotment because of the weather.

I stop; where have the last two months gone? What happened to May after we lambed? Why are we more than half way through June and the year?

What happened to the shoulder high, lacy white umbels of the cow parsley that I walked through to get to work? Now the air is full of the smell of elderflowers lifting their heads above ranks of tall, dark green nettles crusted with tiny brown flowers. Creeping buttercup skirts the path to the field shed and the lower field is awash with daisies. When did the blossom on the apple trees around the chicken run fade and form these clusters of tiny red tinged fruit I can reach up and touch now? Where have the miniature greengages come from and the plums; when did they start to grow?

What have I been doing for the last six weeks? I guess the answer is that I have been gardening flat out, hardly daring to turn around because another job needed doing.

Seedlings, tenderly grown in trays, have been potted on and then pushed out of the womb of the polytunnel to harden in the cold frames stacked along the boundary fence. From there they have been shoe-horned into an ever shrinking area of allotment. Squashes, courgettes, melons, have been tipped into heavy manured beds; sprouts and cabbages secreted under bird netting; tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers and aubergines cosseted in the greenhouses; potatoes earthed up; bean poles erected and purple-hued runner bean seeds and small opal white French bean seed tucked into the ground around them. Celery and celeriac which filled the polytunnel with its minted smell is now standing proud in two long straight rows between the sweet corn patch and the white flowers of early peas. The strawberries have, true to their name, been strawed and there are gooseberries almost ready for picking. Carrot seed has been regularly sown and failed, parsnips are finally coming up and after an abortive first attempt, it looks as if I have beetroot and spinach. Then there are the onions and garlic. Why has the garlic got rust?! Finally, there is my first real crop of the summer; the board beans which I cook smothered in home made parsley sauce, add to casseroles or turn into bright green humus to eat with freshly made flat bread.

The thing I haven’t done is write the regular blog that I had planned every week to map out my first year as a small holder. But the rain has changed that, driven me inside and made me sit down in front of the computer. The window is slightly ajar to let in the smell of fresh earth and damp grass and the sound of the wind tormenting the trees. This is a chance to catch up, get down on paper what has happened, take stock and plan ahead. The longest day of the year.

Little Bo-peep

Sheep were never part of the master plan; fruit, veg, chickens, ducks, maybe a couple of pigs but not sheep. For a start I know nothing about them.
But sometimes stars clash and new worlds are born. Something happens in the grand scheme of things and you find yourself kneeling on a bed of straw looking down at a tiny form that has just been born but which is still encased in its amniotic sack and you are wondering whether to intervene and break open the bag of fluid in which the lamb could drown and release it to this world. You find yourself working quickly, surprised at how strong the bag is, and how difficult it is to clear the mucus from around the lamb's nose, holding your breath while the lamb takes its first gulp of air.

Grey hairs have appeared during my first lambing season and I am still suffering from sleep deprivation. I blame it all on friends. Two of them in fact. There is Katie, who helps me in the garden, who idly, over a cup of coffee sitting outside the garden shed one morning, mentioned that her ambition was to have sheep once more. She had a mis-spent youth working with sheep and over the years the memory had become rose-tinted and she dreamt of owning some of her own. Just a dream until one lunch time sitting on the beach at the Seven Sisters (you need a leap of imagination here; close your eyes and think; spectacular white cliffs, a clear blue sky, the sound of soft gentle waves breaking over the shingle, a group of school children and two Sussex Wildlife Trust school leaders, one of them me in a former life and my colleague Sara, teaching about coastal processes). Sara was moving up to Scotland, and casually mentioned that she needed to find a home for seven of her sheep. I thought of Katie's dream and imagined large, white, nameless sheep grazing on some of my land. In fact what Sara owned were Shetlands, small, tough, beautifully coloured;  black, rusty brown, dun coloured and grey and they all had names! Two and two make four and a month later we dropped the tail-gate on an old Land Rover and the Shetlanders had arrived on my smallholding and life changed for ever.

Looking after the sheep was easy to begin with.  Just a case of checking them, counting the number of legs and ensuring that they looked healthy and happy. Windfall apples were a good way of getting to know each other. Then at the beginning of November the girls went on holiday to meet a fine looking ram and returned pregnant.
The experts will tell you that Shetland sheep lamb easily, produce healthy offspring and come up with lots of milk. And oh yes they normally lamb in the morning. Some of this proved to be true. What they don't tell you is that lambing changes your life.
I had absolutely no experience at all. I had never seen a lamb being born. But that was fine because Katie was there. Except some of the time she wasn't. Arriving in the morning I was never sure what I would find. I had to learn fast, I needed to recognise when things looked straight forward and when there were going to be problems, I needed to get mother and offspring penned as quickly as possible after the birth before they all disappeared across the field never to be caught again. So we waited and waited and I lived on a knife edge.
The crisis broke on a cold wet night as sleet hammered on the roof of the lambing shed. I had gone to check on Nessa, a ewe that we had bought inside because she looked ready to give birth. What I thought was the beginning of labour turned into a long night, a phone call to the vet at midnight when it was obvious she was not in labour and a call out at four o'clock in the morning as our lovely sheep went down, literally, with twin lamb disease. As we waited for the vet to arrive the sky lightened and  I could make out the stark outline of the trees above the hill. I was sure he wasn't going to make it in time and even if he arrived I feared the worse. But as dawn broke this amazing man turned up, checked Nessa carefully, administered steroids and anti-biotics and gave us hope as the dawn chorus started up around us. He also warned us that steroids could send her into labour within twenty four hours. Nessa had always been a bit different and she waited three more days and chose evening to produce two lovely lambs and it was a perfect birth. I looked for the feet pointing down and the head tucked between them as they emerged and everything was fine. Unfortunately, the story did not end there; weak as she was her milk dried up and we found ourselves feeding the lambs. In the end we parted with them to someone who wanted to hand rear two lambs. A hard choice but we had our hands full with four more lambs within the next two days. These were text book births and both ewes are super mothers doing all the right things as mothers do.
Me, I can't quite believe the last week. The responsibility is enormous and every time I walk up the field to check them my heart is in my mouth. Being there at a birth (even though I have had three children!) has somehow changed my perspective on life. There has been a shift in what is important and what is not and somehow I feel privileged to have been part of a tiny miracle, one which happens everyday somewhere but is always special.

 

The Begining

A month ago; late afternoon, early evening and the wind blowing from the east, funnelling down the hillside and across our valley had teeth that bit into the face and numbed the ears. The sky across the Downs was black and heavy with rain as we carefully carried the plastic crate from the back of the car to the new chicken run.
Everything was ready; two new chicken arks, one for the hens and one for the ducks, food, water, clean straw and electric fencing to keep out Mr. Fox.
The hens were released first, four soft brown Red Rangers, two glossy black Copper Marrans and two sleek black Silver Sussex with white ruffs. The Red Rangers would lay the eggs, the others were window dressing. They would lay eggs but not as many. As we scooped them out of the crate and tucked them into the ark the wind caught the trees growing on the bank above the chicken run and bare branches danced across the grey sky. Then it was the turn of the ducks, Kharki Campbells, soft, grey and brown feathers, light weights for laying eggs not for eating. These popped noisily into their new home.
Then we shut everything up, switched on the electric fences and walked back across the field towards the darkening sky. Collars pulled up, gloves on against a bitter cold March day which was slowly gathering itself ready for the night.
Would my new brood be alright? Would the electric fence keep out intruders? This was more nerve racking than motherhood.
As we walked away across the field it suddenly occurred to me that this was the end of a journey and the beginning of a new voyage.
The journey had started almost three and a half years ago in the corner of a cemetery laid out with neat, carefully tended graves lit with early autumn sunlight. As a coffin was lowered into the open ground I bade my Dad farewell for the last time and turned away to face life without (probably) the best friend I had ever had.
For three long years I became the custodian of what had been his life; his home and his small holding, seven acres of sussex countryside that he had worked for over sixty years. Land he had loved, land I grew up on, land I had become part of as well. When the long, painful process of solicitors and probate was finished I found myself the owner of six acres, a cluster of buildings and a large vegetable garden that he had cherished through twenty years of retirement. I had been struggling to keep this part of him alive, juggling work, family and a host of other things. I had a good friend who had started helping me with the vegetable garden but it wasn't enough so the point came when I decided to give up the day job, retire and become a real small holder.
In my head I had a plan that involved self sufficiency (the usual thing), growing food, keeping chickens and ducks, maybe a pig or two and walking in the footsteps of a man who had over the years inspired in me a love of the countryside, a joy in the tiny part of it he owned and a desire to grow rhubarb!